Now that the spat has died down, I have decided to return to this thread.
The Physics of torque tuning!
So far no one has come up with a scientific proof/reason behind torque tuning, to prove how/why it is supposed to work.
So! I went a hunting on the web to see if anyone else had a more scientific approach that would allow one to analyse ones setup to see if it needed torque tuning, or whether torque tuning was the means to the wrong end. Let me explain:-
There are lots of videos/information about how to torque tune, However, and here is the rub, non of them are particularly consistent.
The basic principle seems to be that you can use the sight or rest or both to obtain this magical positioning that allows an archer to torque the bow almost to the point of derailment in the knowledge that the arrow will still hit the centre.
A lot of talk on archery forums suggest that the rest need to move back anything from 1 to 2.5 inches BACK from the nominal vertical bow centre at the deepest part of the grip.
Now I can see the logic of this to some degree, as this would be at the wrist joint as that is how you are torquing the bow to get it to move left or right.
There are others that show the rest needs to go forwards towards the bow centre (grip).
I cannot find any explanation why there is so much difference.
Now, just for a moment let’s get back to basics bow setup.
ALL, and I mean all,
Compound bow setup instructions say to set up the arrow rest such that the point where the arrow contacts the rest should be on or near to the point on the grip which is furthest from the string (where you would measure brace height from).
This correlates to the information above that moving the rest nearer to the centre of the riser seems to be best.
That is where I would naturally set be arrow rest anyway, but, there are arrow rest extensions, arrow rest with large amounts of adjustment, usually backwards, available, are these for archers with long draw lengths to allow shorter arrows and therefore increasing spine?
These are being touted the solution for torque tuning if you cannot move your existing rest far enough.
So! confusion still reigns.
I have just been shooting in my back garden, I have been trying to get an hour a day, weather permitting, while in lockdown. So I thought, ok, let’s give it a go and see what happens with this torque tuning lark.
I shot 4 groups of three arrows, torque left, no torque, torque right.
I torqued my bow to put the weight on the end of the long rod 3 inches either side of neutral.
And the result……..
…………
…………
…………
nothing, they all hit centre or near enough to account for normal small variation.
Now I have to say, I was forcibly having to twist the bow to get it to move left and right, something that would not/could not, happen normally. I have a relaxed open hand position on the bow grip and there is NO WAY I could torque the bow any where near the amount I did without physically gripping the bow and twisting it. My bow grip positions itself between the joint of my thumb and my lifeline.
If I cannot torque the bow with this grip style/position what is the point of toque tuning?
It may be that I already have hit the sweet spot with my sight position and rest position, just by shear luck or is it by other tuning methods that render toque tuning redundant?
I don’t know, do you?
My method of setup/tuning revolves around the following method:-
set arrow rest as near to bow centre (deepest part of grip), position blade so that arrow runs through both berger button holes (if you have two), this with setting the arrow nocking point so that the arrow will be at 90 deg to the string and going through both berger button holes.
Next I set up centre shot, there are more ways to do this than skinning a cat. Note to all cat lovers me included, no animals were harmed in the setup process.
My method is to get the bow in a vice or somehow positioned so that I can attach an arrow to the top and bottom cams, pointing forwards to the front. With an arrow nocked and on the rest, the rest is adjusted left or right to get the nocked arrow to line up with the arrows on the cams.
Note :- you MUST use parallel sided arrows.
This gets you very close to the static centre of force that the bow will impart via the string to the arrow. To setup to the dynamic centre, which is the shooting centre (they may not be the same!)
I use the “French Tune” method to finalise this setting.
shoot at short range adjust sight to get arrow in middle, move out as far as you can and adjust arrow rest (not the sight), go back to short distance and adjust sight. repeat until you can go from the shortest distance to the longest without moving your sight (under little or no wind obviously!).
That is my basic bow setup.
Now where do we go from here, paper tune, tiller tune, torque tune, bare shaft tune, nock tune and half a dozen other methods of tuning?
Once you have got the basic tune done, everything else should be about tuning the archer in my book. So many seem to want to believe they have perfect form so it must be down to the bow. arrows, release aid, weather, paper tune, nock tune etc, PMT, anything but the archer. How many archers do you know who will spend inordinate amounts of money on equipment rather than spend time sorting themselves out which costs nothing but takes effort.
Going back to my torque tune results, have I accidentally dropped on the perfect torque tune with my choice of arrow rest position and sight position?
My sight is positioned to give a good sight picture while allowing me to cover 20 yds to 100 yds without my fletchings hitting the scope at 100 yds (I shoot 50lb max).
having just measured it at about 8 inches from throat of grip to flo pin in sight.
I noticed from the pictures in Mr Parks book, that he shows the sight fully in to the riser and getting left right issues under torque tuning, to moving the sight to about 7 inches, which is about the maximum on that particular sight, most sight bars are a good bit longer.
My question is, why would you have the sight set so close to the riser in the first place.
Move it out as far as possible whilst enabling reasonable sight tape length to cover up to 100yds.
Now! back to torque tuning, do we really need to tune out something that should never happen?
I’m blowed if I know, but my gut instinct says NO! and as my test tune showed me, it is of no value, as the “tune” is already covered by my existing setup, whether by design or accident.
It would be nice if someone could explain the real science of torque tuning preferably with diagrams explains what is happening and why.
When you get a respected archer like Rio Wild who says he saw no benefit (like me! but I am not putting myself anywhere near his ability [I wish!]), then I do have to wonder what other top archers are getting out of torque tuning, bearing in mind THEY should not be torquing their bows anywhere near the extent to need to tune it out. There are lots of other reasons why an arrow gets thrown left or right other than torque.
Until someone comes up with the science of what and why it does what it does, I go back to my original view, despite the fact, as has been mentioned, torque tuning has been around a long time, as have most of the other tune methods, doesn’t make it right.
Just my five cents worth, Andy! might still believe torque tuning is the holy grail of archery, and how dare I voice my negative opinion when everyone else is so obviously right.
Obviously I am such a p*** poor archer who will never get anywhere because I am too stupid/ignorant to know any better, well! such is life……….
end if rant
Intelligent discussion is welcomed
Just to get you started:- why don’t
recurve archers need to torque tune, as they are more likely to torque the bow than a
compound, due to the much bigger/wider grips on recurves?